Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Q: Gurudev, Gurudev, what is the secret to happiness?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The secret to happiness is in being without desires, and in focusing on how you can serve others. The more you serve, the more happiness you will get.Having this feeling, 'I don't want anything for myself, I am contented', bring happiness. And the third thing that brings happiness is wisdom. Without wisdom there is no happiness in life.

Q: Gurudev, In Shiva Purana it is said that anyone who worships Lord Shiva is freed from all sins. Does this mean that corruption begins at the top?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

No! Do you know what corruption is? Corruption is doing that which you don’t wish to be done to you or to your kith and kin. You cannot link pooja (here meaning worshipping Lord Shiva) and corruption.Pooja is a feeling that comes to you out of fullness. Like when a guest comes to your house, you come to the door and receive them. If someone very dear to you is coming to see you, don’t you rush to the train station or the airport to receive them? Does it come out of a feeling of compulsion? You can tell them to call a taxi, but instead you take your vehicle to go and receive them. Why do you do that? What is that feeling? It cannot be called corruption. So pooja means that which comes out of fullness.

In Puranas, many things are written. I’m not an advocate of all the Puranas. Many of them are a means of expression. In fact, the word Purana means a new way of expressing.The Hindi Purana and Sanskrit Purana have totally opposite meanings. In Hindi, Purana means old, and in Sanskrit Purana means very new or modern; it means a different way of expression. Don’t call that as a corruption. God is not so stupid that He waits for you to break a coconut to give you a boon!

All the poojas you do are to express your fullness, not to please God. I think this is a very wrong concept in the world. We think we do things to please God; this is wrong understanding. People fast for many days so that they can please God. You fast to purify your body; you don’t have to fast to please God. This is a wrong understanding.

Q: Gurudev, Gurudev, is it practically possible to be ever smiling and happy in life you? What is your trade secret? I promise I’ll never compete with you.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

I want competition! I want everybody to compete with me! I don’t want that promise from you at all. In fact, you should tell me that you will always compete with me. There is an ancient saying, 'Shishyat icchet parajayam’, a teacher always wishes to be defeated by his student. That is the pride of a teacher.

What is the secret to keep smiling?1. Broaden your vision and know that life is much bigger than the small events that take place in life. What robs you of your smile is unpleasant events; events which do not bring you comfort or which appear to give you misery. But when you realize that you are much bigger than pleasure and pain, and you are much bigger than the events in your life, both pleasant or unpleasant, then the smile on your face will not vanish.2. When you know that there is a power that will guide you and take care of you, then also your smile cannot vanish.3. When you know that you are here to give and contribute to people who need you more than you need anything else, that also gives you the strength to move through those moments when you cannot smile.

Q: Gurudev, Gurudev, a Guru should not stay away from a King or a King should not stay away from the Guru, which option is the right one?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

If you see form the eyes of a Guru everybody is part of him; it is all just roles that one plays. First, everyone should know that we are all part of one divine light, one human race. We cannot afford to be stuck in a role.Each role is like a coat, we should keep changing our coats and we have to play all the roles perfectly. So if someone comes to a teacher, they have to come only as a student. For a Guru, whether rich or poor, stupid or intelligent; everyone is the same.

Q: Gurudev, I have a habit of living in a fantasy world and I realized that it is a defense mechanism. In that world I don’t have any defects. Even when I meditate this happens, how to overcome it?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The moment you realize it is a fantasy, you have already come out of it! If you were still in it you would think that that is the reality. The moment you labeled it as ‘My fantasy world’, you have already come to the shore. You are no longer drowning in it. So, don’t worry about it.

It’s good to have dreams. Think big and have dreams, but at the same time don’t lose the touch of reality. Dance cannot happen when both feet are on to the ground, one has to be firmly on the ground and the other has to be up in the air.

In life also, you should be practical and not lose ground reality. At the same time you should dream something different, something bigger, something higher and sometimes the impossible. If you are dreaming something that is totally impossible, then you are not true to yourself.

When you think that something is totally impossible and at the same time it is totally possible, and somewhere in between you think, ‘I can do it,’ then that is the dream that you should hold on to.

Q: Gurudev, What is the criteria to consider anyone as an avatar (reincarnation)? Sri Krishna is not considered an avatar in many religions other than Hinduism.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

First you should understand what avatar means. Avatar means descending of the divinity, and wherever you find knowledge, divinity has descended there. It is seeing the formless in a form.

In Srimad Bhagavatam it is said, the divine has descended in the swans, in the fire, in the trees, in all animals. The entire creation is nothing but the manifestation of divinity, and wherever you get this message (referring to knowledge) from, you call that as an avatar.

Sage Dattatreya has noted 24 different forms of life. He received knowledge from a swan and said that the swan was a form of Vishnu.

You should know that God is present in every particle of the universe. The cheapest commodity available is the divinity! It is present in the Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether. Everything is made up of one vibration and it can be called by any name, Brahman, divinity, God. So, when divinity shines through one who gives knowledge and can kindle love, then one considers that as an avatar.

Q: Gurudev, It is said that everything is a dream. In whose dream am I? Am I in your dream or are you in mine, or are we both are in a common dream? If it is dream, how does it have rules and patterns?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

What is a dream? It is an impression of a memory. Wake up and at this very moment you will see that the entire past appears as a dream. It is all just a memory. It is just an impression in the mind and nothing else! So, everything is an impression on the mind. What you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, what you touch, all of this form impressions on the consciousness. As long as you are all in each other’s dreams, everything is okay! You can have your own dreams too.

Q: Gurudev, What is the relevance of morality in the real world when divinity is considered beyond morality, like in the case of Krishna?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

The basic principle of morality is, do not do that which you would not want someone else to do to you. If you don’t want your husband to flirt with someone, you should not flirt with someone else, that is it!There was a boy who was going around with a married women, and he didn’t feel it was wrong. He said, ‘We did it on mutual consent’.I asked him, ‘If someone goes around with your brother’s wife, what will you do?’ He said, ‘I will break his leg’.When you want her to be loyal to your brother, then how can you do it to someone else?I said, ‘If there is a future in the relationship, it is a different thing. But, there is no future. Then why should you break someone else’s family?’It struck a chord in him and he realized what he was doing was wrong. That is morality.

What you do not wish to be done to you, or to your near and dear ones, you should not do to someone else. If you don’t want someone else to misbehave with your daughter or son then how can you do that with someone else’s daughter or son. If you don’t want someone else to be drunk while driving, then how can you drive when you are drunk?If you don’t want someone else to rob you of your wealth, or cheat you, then you should not cheat someone else.

Suppose someone forges your signature, you cannot think, ‘Oh we are spiritual, all this is mundane. So what if someone has forged my signature? It is all maya anyway’. If someone puts his hand in your pocket, would you say, ‘Oh, we are all one. Why should one have this ego?’ No. Then this is misuse of knowledge.If knowledge is used to shield immoral activity then that is misuse of knowledge. Morality means not doing something which you don’t wish to be done to yourself.

If someone has done something wrong, don’t hold on to it. If a mistake has happened through you, like you forgive others their mistakes, you should also forgive yourself. Forgive yourself and forgive others; don’t chew on other’s mistakes or your own mistakes.When you chew on the mistakes of others, you get angry. When you chew on your own mistake, you will feel guilty and you will drown in your own depression. Both are no good. Spirituality takes you away from all this.As it is said, to err is human. You make mistakes, but don’t sit and chew on your own mistake or someone else’s mistake. If someone has made a mistake you should forgive and forget. If you have made a mistake, you should ask for forgiveness and move on. Don’t get stuck; feel free!If you are upset with yourself, you can get angry with others very easily. And if you’re angry with others, you will get upset with yourself. Both these positions are not favorable.

Q: Gurudev, (A member of the audience asked a question which was inaudible)

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

You give comfort to people, don’t question them and don’t expect comfort from them. We should not expect people at home to give us pep talks all the time. Life is like that, sometimes you get angry, sometimes you’re happy, you laugh, you cry, you smile. You exhibit all the emotions in life; this is a normal phenomenon. Don’t sit and worry about it. There are so many other things you can do. There is no point in wasting time trying to change people at home.

Yes, that’s wrong. I don’t approve of people killing any animal. Many migratory birds have arrived in the ashram this year. Storks and Pelicans have come to the lake for the first time. They like a good environment, or perhaps there was no water elsewhere. This is very good.We should tell the Environment Department that fishing should not be allowed in the lake because so many birds have come. If they shoot in the air, the birds will get scared.